Tehran: Iran has provided an answer to the US response over a possible nuclear agreement, and if the US makes the “right decision,” negotiations can be concluded quickly, Mohammad Marandi, an advisor to Iran’s nuclear negotiation team, said.
“Iran has responded as promised. It’s time for the (US President Joe) Biden team to make a serious decision,” Marandi on Friday tweeted hours after Iran’s Foreign Ministry Spokesman Nasser Kanaani said that Iran had given answers to the US responses to its viewpoints on the European Union’s draft of a potential nuclear agreement.
“The submitted text has a constructive approach with the aim of finalising the negotiations,” Kanaani added on Friday in a statement.
The US State Department confirmed they received Iran’s response through the EU, Xinhua news agency reported.
“We are studying it and will respond through the EU, but unfortunately it is not constructive,” a department spokesman was quoted by some western media outlets as saying.
“For the US, ‘constructive’ usually means accepting US terms. For Iran, it means a deal that is balanced and protected,” Marandi added.
The Iranian advisor meanwhile stressed that if Washington makes the “right decision,” an agreement can be swiftly concluded.
Iran and the US are indirectly exchanging views about a recent EU proposal aimed at resolving the outstanding issues on the revival of a 2015 nuclear deal, formally known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA).
Iran signed the JCPOA with world powers in July 2015, agreeing to curb its nuclear programme in return for the removal of sanctions on the country. However, former US President Donald Trump pulled Washington out of the agreement and reimposed unilateral sanctions on Tehran, prompting the latter to drop some of its commitments under the pact.
The talks on the revival of the 2015 nuclear deal began in April 2021 in Vienna but were suspended in March this year because of political differences between Tehran and Washington.
The latest round of the nuclear talks was held in the Austrian capital in early August after a five-month hiatus. On August 8, the EU put forward a “final text” of the draft decision on reviving the 2015 nuclear deal.
–IANS